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  • From: mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Tiny super-plant can clean up animal waste and be used for ethanol production
  • Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 15:30:24 -0500

Tiny super-plant can clean up animal waste and be used for ethanol production

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/ncsu-tsc040709.php

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a tiny
aquatic plant can be used to clean up animal waste at industrial hog
farms and potentially be part of the answer for the global energy
crisis. Their research shows that growing duckweed on hog wastewater
can produce five to six times more starch per acre than corn,
according to researcher Dr. Jay Cheng. This means that ethanol
production using duckweed could be "faster and cheaper than from
corn," says fellow researcher Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp.

"We can kill two birds – biofuel production and wastewater treatment –
with one stone – duckweed," Cheng says. Starch from duckweed can be
readily converted into ethanol using the same facilities currently
used for corn, Cheng adds.

Corn is currently the primary crop used for ethanol production in the
United States. However, its use has come under fire in recent years
because of concerns about the amount of energy used to grow corn and
commodity price disruptions resulting from competition for corn
between ethanol manufacturers and the food and feed industries.
Duckweed presents an attractive, non-food alternative that has the
potential to produce significantly more ethanol feedstock per acre
than corn; exploit existing corn-based ethanol production processes
for faster scale-up; and turn pollutants into a fuel production
system. The duckweed system consists of shallow ponds that can be
built on land unsuitable for conventional crops, and is so efficient
it generates water clean enough for re-use. The technology can utilize
any nutrient-rich wastewater, from livestock production to municipal
wastewater.


Large-scale hog farms manage their animal waste by storing it in large
"lagoons" for biological treatment. Duckweed utilizes the nutrients in
the wastewater for growth, thus capturing these nutrients and
preventing their release into the environment. In other words, Cheng
says, "Duckweed could be an environmentally friendly, economically
viable feedstock for ethanol."

"There's a bias in agriculture that all the crops that could be
discovered have been discovered," Stomp says, "but duckweed could be
the first of the new, 21st century crops. In the spirit of George
Washington Carver, who turned peanuts into a major crop, Jay and I are
on a mission to turn duckweed into a new industrial crop, providing an
innovative approach to alternative fuel production."

Cheng, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering,
co-authored the research with Stomp, associate professor of forestry,
and post-doctoral research associate, Mike Yablonski. The research,
which is funded by the North Carolina Biofuels Center, was presented
March 21 at the annual conference of the Institute of Biological
Engineering in Santa Carla, Calif.

Cheng and Stomp are currently establishing a pilot-scale project to
further investigate the best way to establish a large-scale system for
growing duckweed on animal wastewater, and then harvesting and drying
the duckweed.




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